I love a hard game. As much as I hate it at the time, sitting in front of the TV, screaming until I go blue, resisting the massive temptations to throw my £40 controller as hard as I can at the wall, and start tearing apart the very shirt on my back. It's a horrible feeling; I get angry, and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

When it's all said and done though, and I finally reach what I was aiming for through gritted teeth, I know I've achieved something. There's little better than seeing the "Checkpoint Reached" text appear at the top right of the screen after having laboured through a Call of Duty level whilst playing on Veteran. A platformer that requires the upmost coordination and timing to make it through alive will make you feel greater when you make that last jump, and an RPG that puts up such a hard fight for that legendary armour only makes you feel so much better wearing it. Yes, it's so, so satisfying, to play and win a hard game.

But it is a very thin and delicate thread that seperates a hard game and an unfair one. The difference between a hard game and an unfair one is huge, and I think it's worth pointing that out.

Dictionary.com defines "unfair" as:
"not fair; not conforming to approved standards, as of justice, honesty, or ethics...Not just or evenhanded; biased"
This prety much describes an unfair game. "Not just".

You should be in control of how well you do in everyway in a game. If you can't progress in an FPS because your shooting isn't accurate enough, that's your fault. If you can't progress in an FPS because the A.I flanks and kills you, that's your fault...These things are why the game is hard: It requires accurate and fast shooting, and it has good A.I...However, if you can't progress in an FPS because the enemies get a headshot every time from 400m, that's not your fault. If you can't progress in an FPS because enemies spawn randomly on your flank, that's not your fault.

Unfair games are not "Hard". Unfair games are frustrating, cheap and to put it bluntly, crap. Games like Ninja Gaiden, Call of Duty and Hitman: Contracts are "Hard", but it annoys me when people use the term so liberally. Hard games take time and skill to craft, respect them, they deserve it.